


Just a Boy

by Arisprite



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Carla POV, Gen, Missing Scene, Mother-Son Relationship, The day Mikasa came to live with them, coming to terms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5368592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arisprite/pseuds/Arisprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Tomorrow they might both be too old for this.</i>
</p>
<p>Carla's son comes home with blood on his hands, and a silent girl by his side. Carla copes with the news, and the children just cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Boy

Grisha brought Carla’s son home hand in hand with a girl. 

_Some part of her joked to herself that she thought it’d be years before that happened_

Her husband was grim-faced, and silent, and her son was spattered with something dark, and his face was pale, and his eyes were wide, and Carla’s heart stuttered in her chest. 

“Eren!” she said, coming forward to kneel in front of the doorway, stop Eren’s steps, taking his face in her hands. He was cold, and she could feel a fine shiver with each of his breaths. There were growing smudges which look like bruises around his throat, but they couldn’t be bruises, because that would mean that he’d been strangled-

Grisha reached a hand out, and his long, steady fingers were trembling. It was then that she knew that something had happened, something that was no mere scare. “What happened?” she asked Grisha more than Eren. The girl that was still holding Eren’s hand was quiet - obviously that rare minority race you hardly ever saw these days, dark hair matted, blood at the corner of her mouth. She had a wound, her cheek was swollen, and Carla’s heart tugged at her to help, but Eren still hadn’t met her eyes, and Grisha hadn’t said anything. 

“Say something! What the hell is going on?” Carla looked up, gut shaking in fear and the beginnings of anger, something that had always gone hand in hand with her. Grisha’s fingers finally made contact, and they grasped her shoulder with a grip that almost hurt. 

“Let’s get inside. This should stay within the family.” 

 

The children, Eren and the silent child Mikasa, were sent to Eren’s room, while Grisha told her what he knew. Carla was glad that Eren was out of the room, because her arms came to grip a stomach that was twisting in horror, and how could a mother be horrified of her own son? 

“He what? How-?” she gasped, and then gulped a breath. “He said he did it to save her?” 

Grisha nodded, solemn stone, unlike she’d ever seen him. She’d think him uncaring, except that he still had that little, continuous shake. He held himself still, like his skin was going to shatter apart if he moved too quickly. Carla could understand, she felt the same. 

“Does he know? He knows what… that they were… “ _people_ , she thought in her head, but then a part of her understood what Eren had seen, what information he had to have heard, to make that judgement call. The MPs said they had found papers, registers for human trafficking. The little girl was pretty and exotic, and if they’d said anything, well, then Carla wasn’t sure how much of a _person_ those men deserved to be called. 

Grisha took a breath. “He knew. He made a choice, and I don’t think he’ll regret it. He saved that little girl from an evil I don’t want to try to comprehend. This is a cruel world, Carla.” 

Carla pressed a hand against her lips, eyes welling up. “How can he be a child again, after this? How can he go on, knowing what he’s done? Even if it was the right thing.” 

Grisha moved forward, and pulled her into a hug, brushing her hair from her forehead, and pressing a kiss there. 

“He’s strong, he’s so strong. He’ll be alright. He’s our son, after all.” Grisha tried to smile, but Carla couldn’t return it. 

“He’s just a little boy,” she said. Grisha didn’t reply, but _not anymore_ hung in the air. He pulled back. 

“I’ve told Mikasa that she can stay with us. That we’ll take her in. Are you alright with that?” 

Carla had brief thoughts about food portions, and their little house, but she quickly nodded. 

“Of course. She’s welcome.” 

Grisha nodded, eyes downcast, saddened. Carla took a breath, put her hands on her hips, and marched to the kitchen. They all needed a hot meal, before anything else. 

 

.

 

The moonlight was slanting shallowly through the window, hours later when the moon was high, and Carla was sitting on the floor, outside the ajar door of her son’s bedroom. A single candle flickered behind her, but Carla wasn’t looking at anything that needed the flames light. She stared into the middle distance, body tense, and ears peeled as she listened in on the two inhabitants of the room. 

Mikasa had barely spoken during dinner, mouth buried so deeply in Eren’s old scarf that it was a wonder she’d gotten any food into it. Carla took comfort in finding that her bowl was half empty of the vegetable soup at the end of the meal. She had a light voice, monotone and flat, understandable after all she’d been through today. All she’d lost. Right now, she sounded nothing like that. 

Her voice was high, wailing but still so quiet, like a baby bird too weak to even call out for it’s mother. It trembled and broke, and Carla broke with it. She would have gone in there, except that Eren was saying everything she would have. 

Eren was quiet during dinner as well. He ate almost nothing, a major sign that something was wrong. She would have been demanding he eat, demanding he tell her, except that she knew what was wrong, and damn her she couldn’t bear to hear it again. 

His voice now was young, so young, but calming, hushing Mikasa and whispering reassurances into her hair. He promised to protect her, that he’d always be there to save her, and he told her that she could save herself too. After all, she’d saved him that afternoon, remember? He’d be dead if it weren’t for her. 

If Carla could have spoken, it would have been that moment, but she had no idea what she should say. 

She stayed there, huddled in the doorway of her son’s bedroom; her dear sweet child, who was still the same boy, no matter how her stomach heaved with what he’d felt he had to do, until the candle guttered and the moonlight brightened with not having to fight the artificial light. 

Mikasa’s sniffles and gasps softened, and she soon was breathing slower, nose thick, eyes probably swollen with tears. Carla’s own mother had made a wonderful poultice for tearful eyes; she called it her cure for a broken heart, but really it was the care given after crying your heart out that helped all those nights she cried over boys, and other meaningless things. 

Carla still did not move, listening as Eren’s breathing didn’t slow, but quickened. Alone in the dark, or so he thought, he whimpered, pulling in a shaky breath, before the bedcovers shifted. Carla didn’t have time to move, before pattering barefeet ran into the hallway and she was discovered. 

Eren stared down at her, one hand on his doorknob, the other raised to rub at his welling eyes, shock briefly banishing all other emotions. 

“Mom? Wha-” his voice broke, and he sniffed. He pressed gamely on. “What are you doing out here?” 

Carla’s throat closed, and she met her son’s eyes, glimmering in the blue light from the window, face already twisting again, and flushing from embarrassment at being caught crying, as if he didn’t have more than a good reason. She shook her head, and lifted her arms, caught suddenly by a desire to hold him, and protect him from everything he’d promised to protect Mikasa from. 

Eren gasped, a tiny broken baby bird noise of his own, before he flew forward, and buried his face into her chest. Carla wrapped him up, pulling him as close as she could get him, rubbing her hands up and down his hair, and back, trying to comfort him. Raw, huge sobs tore through him, loud where Mikasa’s had been silent, though he tried to muffle them in her shirt. Carla didn’t care, crying herself, some part of her warming, forgiving Eren for his decision, so grateful that he still could be comforted like this. 

“Eren, Eren, my baby,” she murmured, over and over, as he bit down on howls. His fingers gripped her back, even pulling her loose hair, and she let it happen, allowing herself to take even a small part of the pain he must be feeling. Eventually, he quieted, and let himself go limp in her lap. She pushed back his damp bangs, and wiped away tears, as he shivered against her, breath still hitching everyone once in awhile. 

“I don’t think it was wrong…” he whispered, after a while. His voice was tiny, rough. “There was no time to wait for the police, Mom… you didn’t hear what they were going to do to her…” 

Carla sobbed a little herself, reaching to cup Eren’s face. 

“You made a choice. I can’t tell you if it was right or wrong. I just want you to be alright, Eren,” she breathed, and Eren reached up a heavy arm, and hugged her again. 

“I’m alright,” he murmured, sounding exhausted. “Dad said I was lucky.” 

“You were.” Carla shivered. Incredibly, impossibly lucky. How two nine year olds could… well. It’s done with. The Military Police had already said that they were free to continue their lives without investigation. There were more than enough papers at the crime scene to positively identify these three as human traffickers and kidnappers, not to mention that they’d taken Mikasa right there. They’d have gotten the death penalty anyway, and the MPs were happy to not have to deal with it. That’s what Grisha had said, anyway. Carla didn’t know. She wanted to trust that the MPs were human enough to be as disturbed by this as she was, but maybe that wasn’t the case. 

“I just wanted to save her. I didn’t think of anything else…” Eren’s voice was small, and scared. “Now… I killed them, and they can’t do any more bad stuff… but I still _killed_ them.” 

Carla swallowed. “Honey, I need you to tell me right now. Do you think that you can be alright with that? You killed those two men, and it saved that girl in there, but you still did it.” 

Eren lifted his head at her words, eyes wide in a pale, young _so young_ face. Then, his eyebrows came down into a ‘V’ and he abruptly looked so much older. 

“I did do it. I accept that. I fought and won, Mom.” Eren swallowed, and his face was a child again. “But… my stomach still hurts…” 

He bowed his head, and leaned against her again, and Carla cradled him against her, hushing him, murmuring soothing noises, but none of her old lullabies. Grisha was right, Eren was no longer a child. But, he wasn’t an adult either. He’d have to decide what he was on his own, just like any other man. 

 

.

 

Eren fell asleep like that, pressed against her, face buried out of sight and tear stains smoothed away by the fabric of her shirt. He was limp and heavy, like he was a toddler again, and Carla had been sitting on the floor for so long that she didn’t think she’d be able to move anyway, might as well get comfortable. She was just shifting her legs out to the front of her, when a small scuff made her turn towards Eren’s room. 

Mikasa stood there, scarf not bundled around her neck anymore, but still clasped in her hands. She was looking at Carla and Eren with eyes that Carla couldn’t read, but she’d heard how the girl was crying. She’d lost her entire family today, but at least Carla could make sure that she felt like she could gain a new one, once she was ready. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” she murmured, knowing that it would be very difficult to wake Eren now, but still keeping quiet out of old habit. He’d been a colicky baby. 

Mikasa started, and looked at her in the eyes, before crouching to grasp her scarf to her chin, and letting the nightgown (Carla’s other sleep shirt) billow around her thin legs. 

“Hello Mrs. Jaeger,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. 

“Are you alright?” Carla asked, and then winced. “I mean-” 

“It’s okay.” Mikasa’s words were nearly muffled in the red knit. The scarf was a gift from herself, two winters ago, during the Festival of Lights, when the days grew short. Carla didn’t mind it encircling this child’s neck instead of Eren’s though. “I wanted to... I heard him crying.” 

Carla looked down at Eren. He looked fine now, warm and sleeping deeply. Mikasa looked like she wanted to reach out, wanted something, needed something desperately, but Carla had no idea what it was or how to give it. 

“He’s…” she trailed off, because Eren was fine, but he wasn’t, and Mikasa surely knew that. Mikasa nodded. 

“He’s strong,” she said, admiration in her voice.

Something like fear settled deep into her stomach, like those words were portending a terrible life for her child. Like he’d need to be strong, for what was to come. Carla shook it off. 

“You both are. But you’re both children too, and you should sleep.” 

Mikasa glanced at the bed, and then at Eren, sleeping heavily against his mother, rather than tucked up where he’d started. Carla resigned herself to a night on the floor, and then lifted her arm to let Mikasa come underneath it. She stared for a long moment, and Carla almost gave up, before she leaned forward, and snuggled into Carla’s side. Her tiny fingers, strong enough to fight for her life and safety, and that of her boy, reached out and caught hold of the collar of Eren’s shirt, and then she closed her eyes. Carla was glad it was a warm night, and glad that these children were still children in this way at last, glad that her arms could still make _something_ a little better. She smiled to herself, and let her own eyes close. 

Some time later, Grisha was kneeling in front of her in his own night shirt, smiling gently. 

“Want me to carry them to the bed?” 

Carla stirred, and looked down at both of them. Dawn was coming, and Carla’s behind was completely numb. She closed her eyes and settled back again against the wall. 

“No… I’ll keep them here for tonight.” 

Tomorrow they might both be too old for this so Carla would keep them here in her arms for as long as she could.

**Author's Note:**

> I've recently been very into Attack on Titan, and this had to come out. I don't know if there will be more. I know that Eren said he believes that what he did was right, but how can a nine year old cope with that sort of decision? I work with nine year olds, and I look at them cry over someone not sharing legos, and I just think, surely Eren and Mikasa both had to go through a lot of processing over this. I chose Carla's pov, as a caretaker, and tried to explore what a mother would feel and think, finding out her baby boy had killed, to protect, yes, but still. I'm not a mother, and I've never been in this situation, but these are thoughts that came to mind. 
> 
> Also, for anyone who follows my other fandoms, I have a great many Tsubasa/xxxHolic fics in the works, including finally doing more work on the Noragami/Tsubasa/xxxHolic crossover fic/epic. Look for more soon!


End file.
